


to have and to fold

by Jsscshvlr



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: How Do I Tag, Meet Messy, Michelle Jones is a Little Shit, Peter Parker is a Mess, Retail AU, for jill everyone else dni
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29159892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jsscshvlr/pseuds/Jsscshvlr
Summary: Peter thinks Polly likes him because she looks at him a lot when he's in the store she works at.Her name isn't Polly and that's not the only thing he's wrong about.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 30
Kudos: 75





	to have and to fold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coykoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coykoi/gifts).



> me running to google docs to write something ridiculous for Jill because I love her and want her to have a good day - it is what it is

“I know, May… yeah, I will ask her for her number this time… no I won’t buy another pack of socks because I chickened out,” Peter grumbles into his phone. So he happens to have at least thirty new pairs of socks because he’s petrified of asking Polly for her number. They’re the cheapest thing in the store she works at so when he inevitably stumbles over his words when she looks at him for a beat too long and he ends up asking where the socks are. 

When May asked him why his laundry had started to consist of more socks than anything else and why his meagre wage from working a couple of Saturday afternoons at Delmar’s keeps disappearing - he’d managed to stutter out about his crush. He feels bad about spending the money because although May would never ask him to contribute to their household income, he does eat significantly more than the average teenager so he does try and pick up groceries sometimes and if he could just ask Polly out - he’d be able to save eighteen dollars every week. 

Plus, he’ll need to save to take her to dinner, right? He’s like 67% sure that she likes him. Every time he’s in the store he catches her looking at him. Last week she spoke to him first, asking if he needed help finding something - but he sensed something in her tone that was asking something else. Obviously, he couldn’t ask her then because she had her hair down and he was distracted by the way her curls bounced as she walked over to him. So he went home with another packet of overpriced socks. 

“Maaaaay.” He says into his phone because although his Aunt is his favourite ever person, he doesn’t need to be nervous walking back into the store. What if she wants to shake hands on the date? He can’t do that with clammy palms. And while May only means well, there’s only so many times he can hear her tell him he’s cute - he’s almost seventeen - cute is not the word to use. 

“Okay, I’m going in now… what?! I can’t bring flowers into her workplace May! I just passed a florist should I go back?” He asks her frantically while he spins in place on the sidewalk which garners him some evil glares from other pedestrians. It’s fair. He hears May tell him to take flowers to the first date, he agrees with a heavy sigh and says bye before he can get distracted again. 

He pockets his phone, wipes his hands on his jeans and walks the twenty metres to the store. He can do this, it’s not an issue, she’s going to say yes. If she doesn’t he can just - never enter the store again. He can’t even remember why he was here in the first place.

Did he need a new shirt? If so he never got around to buying one. Was he after a birthday present? Unlikely, he’s bought Ned legos every year since grade school and May refuses to accept anything other than the flowers he manages to sneak into a vase the morning of her birthday. It’s possible he saw Polly from across the street and his feet moved without letting his brain know why. Honestly, he couldn’t say. 

He pulls the door open and watches as Polly’s head snaps up from organising clothes on a rail and he thinks her eyes squint at him but she does it so often he assumes it’s friendly. Maybe she’s as nervous as he is. He puts his hand in his pocket to feel for the written plan he made with Ned last night and goes over it in his head trying to remember the changes May made. 

  1. Walk over to her (make sure you smile)
  2. Tell her a joke (not Star Wars, Pete) and make her laugh. 
  3. Buy her flowers 
  4. Give her the flowers (do not just shove them in her face)
  5. Ask her out (be romantic about it)
  6. She says yes. 



Okay so just because he can no longer do steps three and four doesn’t mean he has to completely abandon ship, right? Sure her hair is down again today but he saw her last week with her hair down so he’s totally desensitized to it. 

He makes a beeline straight for her and when he gets a little closer tries to catch her eye line. He hears her let out a deep breath and he’s excited at the prospect that she’s just as nervous as him. 

“Hi - can I help you today?” She says before he’s near her and because she has to say it loudly he thinks it sounds a little pointed but he can barely hear her anyway over the thumping of his heart. 

He waits to answer till he’s a little closer and he should have done it the second she asked because she gets ten times cuter with every step he takes.

“Yes.” He says with a wide smile and he watches as her eyes flick over his face, but her mouth does not quirk up in the way he had hoped. If anything she looks a little bored.

“More socks?” She says as she leans her elbow on the rail and tucks one ankle behind her other. She’s so effortlessly cool he’s a little embarrassed to even be around her. He manages to force out a laugh when he remembers she asked him a question and her brows furrow and her lips downturn at the edges and she’s  _ so  _ pretty. 

“Er, no. No socks today.” Peter replies while gripping the straps on his backpack so tight they might shred and then he’d have to spend their dinner money on another one. 

“Okay.” She says like she is uninterested in this conversation and he wonders if he imagined all the times he caught her looking at him. But that can’t be true because he asked Karen and she said that she looked at him whenever he was looking at clothes near her and she kept doing something with her eyes when he wasn’t looking. If you asked him if he slyly recorded their interactions with a perfectly placed camera he would not say yes. In his very limited defence, he deleted the footage after he had Karen analyse it. She’s very attractive! He needed scientific proof!

“Polly -” he starts and she looks confused.

“What’s Polly?”

“Er - you?” He says and he can feel himself getting redder by the second.

“No?” She says and the middle of her eyebrows get closer together and she chews her lip while looking at him in confusion and he should bolt. He should bail and run for the hills but all he really wants to do is smooth the creases from her forehead and tell her the joke he worked on the entire walk here.

“Oh. Your tag.” He replies pointing towards her chest and then having to clear his throat for unrelated reasons. 

“Oh, I lost mine the first day and just found this in lost and found.”  _ Not  _ Polly replies flipping her hair over her shoulder and it is honestly unreasonable how beautiful she is. 

“Right,” Peter says with a gulp. He should definitely leave. Everything he’s been thinking about for the past month is fabricated and revolves around someone that doesn’t even exist. His feet have other ideas and plant themselves firmly in front of her even though his brain can’t think of anything else to say. 

“Okay, well if you don’t need any help.” She says with a small smile that sets his heart racing, and she moves to turn away. He scrunches his face up when her back is turned and wills himself to say something, anything. 

“You’re always looking at me.” Okay, so not that. She spins back slowly and her eyebrows are furrowed again and  _ God _ , does she have to get prettier with every passing second? 

“What?”

“Whenever I come in here, I always catch you looking at me.”

“Okay?”

“Why?”

“Because you mess up my displays while you fumble looking for a T-shirt I know you’re not going to buy because you’ve been here multiple times and only ever bought socks. But I’m on my second strike with my boss and therefore I cannot afford to call you out on it.” She replies cooly while folding her arms across her chest. 

He wheezes. 

“Right. Yes. That makes perfect sense thank you for your time.” He’s definitely going to leave now even if he has to chop his feet off to do so. 

“Why did you think I was looking at you?” She asks with a small smile and his traitorous eyes definitely form hearts at the sight.

“No reason.” He feels himself blush and looks at the floor.

“Did you think I thought you were cute?” He hears her ask and there’s definitely a tone in that question.

“No.” He whispers at the floor.

“I do.” She replies and his head snaps up so fast his teeth clink together but he can’t be bothered to think about the pain. Not when he can see the faintest pink blush forming on her cheeks. 

“You’re really pretty.”

“Therefore I have value?” She asks with an eyebrow raised. He squints at her while trying to settle the nerves running through him that she might be flirting with him. She might also be very mad he clearly knows nothing about her. 

“I’m placing a wager on you messing with me.”

“What do you win if you’re right?”

“Your name.”

“And what do I win if I’m right?”

“I don’t think you are but you can choose.” He says and he thinks he might become a betting man because she smiles brightly at him.

“Michelle.” Peter mirrors her smile and passes her his phone so she can put her number in. “I get off at six.”

“It’s a date.”

“I’m aware.” She replies while handing his phone back - if his fingers linger on the back of her hand then she doesn’t mention it. He leaves the store with a slight skip to his step, he only turns back to look at her three times and each time she’s already looking at him. 

On his way home he calls Ned to tell him about how successful his plan was and only grumbles once when he doesn’t believe his flawless pick-up line worked. So he tells him the truth and listens as Ned makes a new plan for how he should act at dinner. Peter picks up a bunch of flowers for May on the way home and a bunch for Michelle, she seems like the type to enjoy black Dahlias. 

He smiles as he skips lightly across the street while Ned tells him he only really needs a two-step plan. Step one, give her flowers. Step two, “just be yourself, Peter.” Peter tries to explain that no one wants that but Ned makes a good point that she clearly does want that because he just spent the last month being a doofus in her store. 

“May agrees with me, Peter.”

“How do you know?”

“I just asked her, I’m at your place.”

“Of course you are,” Peter says with a smile he knows Ned can hear. 

“As if I would let you go on your first proper date without giving you a pep talk,” Ned scoffs and Peter can barely deal with how lucky he got with Ned Leeds. He swings himself around a lampost with his free hand, flowers crooked under his arm and thinks about changing his mind on Ned when she shouts out, “May says bring eggs.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know x
> 
> come say hi on tumblr: i-lovethatforme


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